By Rabbi Joey, from his blog Gal Aynai: http://www.galaynai.com/

Donald Trump has suggested that “rogue elements” have claimed the life of a Saudi journalist – he wants his cake and to eat it too.  Consistent with his life’s trajectory, he’d like to sustain the profits that the kingdom bestows upon his own beneficiaries, while releasing some minimal steam.  Money is everything, even more important than a dissident human being, who wrote about the excesses of the autocrat MBS.  Even though a few of the president’s Republican enablers are howling that there should be limits to our indulgences, should any of us be surprised about venality emanating from the White House?

Rogue elements?  Come on.  The president of the United States routinely demeans women, foments racist torment, assails the press.

The Torah describes, in this week’s portion Lech Lecha, a counterpoint in human affairs, when it comes to nation-building.  There’s Abraham, who goes forth and is told “to be a blessing” to others.  He didn’t say much, but his ears perked up and he pounded the pavement.  And there’s his nephew Lot, who splits off in the direction of Sodom.  Eventually, as the angels move in to save him, he stalls before making the decision to leave.

The Midrash Tanchuma tells us about the allure of that place:  Lot saw the people there doing reprehensible stuff and he resolved to emulate their model.  On the threshold of destruction, he stuck to denying the facts at hand; and instead of leaving the city quickly, according to a rabbinic legend, he held out, transfixed by his vast treasure at risk of being lost.

Why do some prominent figures remain invested in their own narrow self-interests, while others will stay focused on a broader timeline and real human goals?  What guarantees that they will become more accountable?

The historian Jill Lepore writes about an “epistemological abyss” in her ambitious volume, These Truths: A History of the United States.  In what amounts to a breathtaking account of American democracy, its ups and downs, she chronicles the asymmetrical relationship between the parties in power and the people who clamor to grasp the issues and positions that will influence their wellbeing.  The former want to shape opinion and the latter aspire to know the truth.

They can’t know it by watching Fox News.

 It’s tragic, in her view, but understandable, that we arrived in the 1990s at the point that “the conservative media establishment, founded on the idea that the existing media establishment was biased, had built into its foundation a rejection of the idea that truth could come from weighing different points of view.”

She explains the antecedents:  The founders disdained too much democracy, for fear that large numbers of relatively uneducated people would inevitably lead to anarchy and corruption, or have their interests coopted by forces concerned for their own gain.

“Whenever therefore an apparent interest or common passion unites a majority what is to restrain them from unjust violations of the rights and interests of the minority, or of individuals?” she quotes James Madison.  Or, on the other hand, there’s the populist Mary E. Lease, who in the Gilded Age lambasted the capitalists who “subverted the will of the people.”

And in 1922, Walter Lippmann warned that, in Lepore’s words, “mass democracy can’t work, because the new tools of mass persuasion – especially mass advertising – meant that a tiny minority could very easily persuade the majority to believe whatever it wished them to believe.”  He witnessed the rise of radio and TV, their revolutionary influences – but the implications of the news networks being able to circumvent the FCC’s fairness doctrine had yet to take full effect.

The term masses had itself all but replaced the people in the first half of the last century, in a manner reminiscent of God’s promise to Abraham that his offspring would be as many as the stars in the sky.  However, a later psalmist would amend this by saying that God, at least, makes it a point to call each tiny light individually by name.

When we read the opening chapters of the patriarchal narrative in Genesis, it’s easy to overlook the tension at play from the beginning.  There’s the steadfast hope for justice, exemplified by Abraham, and the nihilism of Lot.  The twin poles are inherent in the people’s story down through the days of the Davidic dynasty – and without the prophetic voice of reason and clarity, there would be no hope emanating from the pages of the Bible.

And here it is we find ourselves today, with leadership in a quandary about an inconvenient murder and a rich patron state.  Will the truth be dressed up or brushed aside?

While the cacophony on cable news and in the streets at Proud Boys’ rallies unnerves us, we must remember that what made Abraham great was the question he posed to God – will the judge of all the earth not make justice happen?

This was no infant’s wail, a wish to be mollified.  His spare words represent as adamant a demand as there has ever been to move the forces of what’s right in the world toward getting the work done.   There’s no democracy without our resolving to speak up and stand up for it.  Sodom self-destructs, but the long-term interests of democracy require that we grab the reins of good government.  And that we make every effort to discover the truth, explain it thoroughly and patiently, and, like Abraham, speak less and be good listeners along the way.